One of our own
Fr. Peter '73 brings more to his role as headmaster than just smarts and a Cistercian diploma.

[Published in the March 2002 edition of The Continuum, the alumni magazine of the Cistercian Prep School.]

By David Stewart
The phone rang at the school just a few minutes before the 8:30 bell. It was a warm Friday in the middle of May 1996. Souad Shrime, mother of Mark '92 and Ryan '96, was calling from the hospital room where her husband had been fighting cancer since January. The battle was taking a turn for the worse.
Cistercian priests had visited Dr. George Shrime's hospital room on a regular basis ever since hearing about his condition. "Nothing was spoken. We didn't ask them to come to the hospital," Mrs. Shrime said. "They just came."
Ryan's Form Master, Fr. Henry, spent many hours lending his moral support to the family along with Fr. Gregory, who had grown close to Ryan his senior year. "Ryan and Fr. Greg were like two peas in a pod," said Mrs. Shrime.
Fr. Peter also devoted hours to the Shrime family, in the hospital room and at their home in Lake Highlands where he conducted a Bible Study class. At those weekly sessions, Mrs. Shrime often would ask Fr. Peter if there was anything she could do for him. "Just pray for us," he said, "and pray for me." Several months later she learned Fr. Peter had been appointed Cistercian Prep's new headmaster, giving Fr. Bernard the rest he had sought for so long.
"Fr. Peter prayed fervently that my husband would make it to Ryan's graduation," Mrs. Shrime recalled.
But when the phone rang in the school that morning, Mrs. Shrime was calling because she felt those prayers would go unanswered. She needed the Cistercians there with her. Juggling class schedules, priests rotated in and out. The monks would maintain a near-constant presence at the hospital for the next several days. Fr. Denis, Fr. Bernard, Fr. Henry, Fr. Gregory, and Fr. Peter all shared time beside Mrs. Shrime and her kids, Mark, Maria, and Ryan, who were there non-stop.
"It was a very private time in our lives," recalled Ryan Shrime, who graduated from Harvard last May with a degree in economics. "No one was at the hospital with us Sunday morning, except for the priests. My sister had met the priests only at school functions, but she was comfortable with them; we were all strengthened by their presence. There was a real feeling of peace when they were in the room. They didn't have to say anything.
"I didn't cry very often in the last couple of days of my father's life. We had been awake for so long, our senses were numbed," he said. "But I remember leaving the hospital room for a few minutes of down time. When I returned and saw Fr. Peter there, I just lost it.
"Their presence was so important; they were like angels in the room. I was so grateful. I felt protected with them there," Ryan added.
Mid-morning on Sunday, while his classmates attended their Baccalaureate Mass and Breakfast, Ryan saw his father losing the battle. As Dr. Shrime's life drew to an end, Mrs. Shrime turned to Fr. Peter for guidance. "What do you say?" she asked.
"There is nothing more to do," said Fr. Peter, who stood on one side of the hospital room door.
Then Mrs. Shrime looked to Fr. Gregory who stood on the other side of the door. He bowed his head, overcome with tears. "At that point, we all broke down," said Ryan.
"An unspoken bond was created at that moment," Mrs. Shrime said.

"You applied for this job?" Fr. Peter often asks other school administrators when he meets them. Cistercian headmasters, you see, are an odd breed in their line of work. They do not set out consciously to climb the career ladder of school administration. Positions at larger institutions do not interest them. They are Cistercians first, educators second, and headmasters third. Running the school is service work - a case of servant leadership.
"I didn't campaign for the job," said Fr. Bernard, "and neither did Fr. Peter."
"I don't believe Fr. Denis, Fr. Bernard, or I would have been a headmaster at any other school," Fr. Peter added. "No one in the abbey has the ambition to be headmaster."
Fr. Bernard, who served for 15 years without a break, tried to be excused from the job for several years. He had grown tired of the stress. (He was asked frequently, "Did you resign out of protest? Was there a power struggle?") Upon his retirement from the position, Fr. Bernard said it was a job he had taken simply in obedience to his vocation.
Along the way, he had help.
"The school couldn't have doubled in size during those years without Fr. Peter," Fr. Bernard said. "He made it possible through his diligent work on the curriculum and his organizational skills. In some ways, I was just the front man.
"You see, it's a family enterprise," explained Fr. Bernard, "we all help each other out. That's the strength that the monastery brings to the school. We all have been successful at one aspect or another of the job. The great thing is that each headmaster is supported by his brothers who can fill in where needed.
"It's a tough job," he added. "You are tugged at from all sides. You have to try to be your own man, and you can't try to satisfy all the demands. You do have to accommodate. It can be very stressful."
Most acknowledge that Cistercian's first headmaster, Fr. Damian, was a master at public relations. Fr. Denis stepped up and made those promises a reality by formalizing the school's curriculum and raising the school's academic standards. Fr. Bernard enjoyed promoting the school and was very successful at it.
Fr. Peter officially took over as headmaster a few weeks after Dr. Shrime's funeral at Cistercian and Ryan Shrime's emotional valedictory address at the 1996 commencement exercises. The death of Dr. Shrime and the outpouring of support for his family drew the community together in a very special way. Fr. Peter sought to keep that feeling of selflessness going.
"I was ready, excited, anxious," said Fr. Peter about becoming headmaster, "and naive."

Peter Verhalen's wavy blond locks were blowing in the wind on a gorgeous day in 1973. He and classmate Tom Lewis '73 were headed out on the highway to a senior class field trip in Verhalen's 1956 Karmann Ghia convertible - a burnt red number that, despite a "tiny" engine, exuded machismo.
Lewis was thinking life couldn't get much better - field trip, sunny day, convertible - when his heart stopped. An eighteen-wheeler swung into their lane on Highway 114 forcing Verhalen to react quickly and swerve onto the shoulder. The blood sped out of Lewis' face leaving him white as a sheet, just grateful to be alive.
Verhalen glanced casually over at Lewis and smiled. "I think," he said over the noise of the car and wind, "he was trying to run us off the road."
With natural cool and a hungry, logical mind, Peter Verhalen began squeezing out every bit of knowledge from the Cistercian faculty right from the start (which was Pre-Form or fourth grade in those days).
In just his second year at Cistercian, Verhalen was considered for the St. Bernard Gold Award, the school's highest honor. Verhalen's Form Master in those days, Fr. John, promoted him to faculty members (who vote on the award) as a "wonderful specimen and a delightful person." The faculty agreed, voting to give the award to the precocious First Former.
"Remember," said Fr. Peter, anxious to downplay the accomplishment, "the school only went through Form IV that year." He remains the youngest winner of the award to this day; that award marked the beginning of a truly remarkable career at Cistercian Prep, a career that has many years to go.
"Peter would come home from school, grab a glass of milk and hit the books or play piano," said his dad, Peter Verhalen. "He recognized the value of capturing the time he had when he was clearheaded." But he was not just a bookworm.
As a member of perhaps the most athletic class of the seventies, Verhalen won a reputation as a tough tackling defensive end in eighth grade football. "I liked hitting, psyching up, and the emotion of the game," Fr. Peter recalled.
"Peter was one of the fiercest tacklers on the eighth grade football team when I had the misfortune of being a second-string running back who was used primarily as a tackling dummy," said Cullen Thomas '73. "The coaches used to say Peter had a split personality because he was always so easygoing until he put on his helmet." His affinity for sticking his head into ball carriers resulted in his pinching a nerve in his neck on two separate occasions his freshman year. The injuries prematurely ended his gridiron career; soccer became his sport for the remaining years of high school.
Socially, he was a winner with the girls from the start.
"I remember Peter was voted the King of Hearts at the Junior Assembly Valentine's Dance one year," Thomas said. "That was quite an accomplishment considering Cistercian students' limited exposure to the opposite sex in social situations back then. I was still terrified to ask girls to dance so it gave me a glimmer of hope for the future.
"At the time," Thomas reflected, " I would have voted Peter the least likely person in our class to become a priest and myself the one most likely to become celibate."
"Peter was extremely intelligent and well-liked," recalled Gary Lucido '73. "He was the only person in our class who could learn foreign languages. The rest of us concluded that the people of the world should just learn English."
Teachers like Fr. Placid and Stephen Housewright encouraged Verhalen's love for languages.
Mr. Housewright, who taught English at Cistercian from 1969 until 1978, was a slight man who rarely raised his voice but whose love for literature captivated his classes. He once wrote on the blackboard a sentence from the Iliad in Homer's Greek and then translated it word for word. Mr. Housewright explained to Verhalen and his classmates that Homer was trying to describe the same experience one would have in Vietnam (which was being fought at the time). The relevance of the passage and the ability to understand the writer's native language whetted Verhalen's intellectual appetite.

"I wanted to get out of Dallas, Texas, and America," Fr. Peter recalled about his reasons for taking his junior year abroad. In Europe, he would study, travel, and soak up the culture. During school vacations - while his Austrian classmates vacationed with their families at home - Verhalen traveled alone around the continent. "I would spend a week or two hiking around, seeing a lot of places. It also was a chance to pray. I was thrown on to my own resources. I would come into a new city and I would end up in a church. It made me feel safe. I would pray, then leave, and follow the directions to the nearest youth hostel."
While his sense of independence and his reliance on prayer were growing, Verhalen's hungry mind was absorbing European life. Some of that life lay within the Cistercian monastery where Verhalen boarded along with many of his classmates at Schlierbach High School, about 50 miles from Linz.
"I saw another side to the monks by staying in the monastery," Fr. Peter said. "The real influence was my form master, Fr. Ludwig. The boys said he had a sad eye. There had been some severe illnesses in his family and his best friend had left the abbey. He was running the school because the Headmaster was too old and tired to do so. He had all the responsibility but no authority. But he did his duty. He'd wake us up at 6:30 to send us off to a study hall every day. I admired his stability and his strength of will to live his vocation faithfully."
One night, Fr. Ludwig was sitting around in the lounge with Verhalen and his classmates. "He was predicting what each of us would become. When it was my turn, he said, 'You, Peter, will become a Cistercian.' I said no and laughed it off."
Then there was the matter of going to school.
Fr. Denis, who had helped select the school and was old friends with Fr. Ludwig, told Verhalen he probably would last just a semester. After all, this school could not and would not make any allowances for an American who hoped to learn their Form VII curriculum in a language he had studied for only two years.
"I was really lucky with Fr. Placid at Cistercian," Fr. Peter insisted. "We teased him a lot but he was so talented. He prepared me so I was able to take all the classes at Schlierbach." Verhalen took all the courses his Austrian classmates were required to take, except for Greek. The curriculum included Latin.
"The Latin at Schlierbach was a real eye-opener; it was so much more advanced than what I was used to. They were reading Virgil. We had to memorize page after page of vocabulary, one everyday. And it was cumulative. It was a great way to learn German and Latin. I spent a lot of time with my Latin-German dictionary."
Mr. Housewright had amazed him back in Texas by translating Homer's Greek. Now he was learning to read the Aeneid in Virgil's Latin. The challenge of learning Latin in German excited him.
Back in Irving, the September 1971 edition of The Informer made hay of Verhalen's bold move to study in Austria. The cover proclaimed "Verhalen in Austria," over a photo of the gymnasium under construction. Verhalen wrote a letter to the paper that appeared in the October 1971 edition describing, among other things, one of Fr. Ludwig's parties. "I went to a dance Friday night and it reminded me of something out of the early 1960's. There was a 'play-like' disc jockey and lots of 'boys and girls.' I really enjoyed it."
Fr. Denis, who had expected to pull a weary Verhalen back to Texas by the end of the first semester, was receiving long, enthusiastic letters in German from the young American. Verhalen was proving to be up to the challenge and prepared for more.
By June, when Fr. Roch and Robert Salgo '73 flew across the Atlantic to travel around with Verhalen at the end of his year at Schlierbach, the changes were clear. "The three of us were standing at the window of the Royal Castle [now a museum in Budapest]," remembered Fr. Roch. "We were looking down at the Danube. Half-joking, half-serious, Peter declared, 'I don't want to go back to America.' He had developed a great love for Europe."
And while the thought of the priesthood had occasionally entered his mind over the years, his year in Austria showed him the way. "I began to realize that God wanted me to do something else."

"What will our school become within the next 10 years?" Abbot Anselm asked rhetorically in his letter to the readers of the 1973 Exodus, reflecting on the school's first 10 years. "It depends on its administration, teaching staff, the enthusiasm of the parents and, above all, on the young men who graduate from our school." For Peter Verhalen, the future looked bright. The future of the school was another matter.
"There were subtle differences in Peter when he came back from Austria," said Tom Lewis, who served as president of the student government their senior year. "Nothing earthshattering. He was just more mature; he had a quiet confidence that grew out of his experiences in Europe. He had developed an international perspective on things and he seemed to have a feeling of how his own future was going to fit into that bigger picture."
After school, Verhalen worked at various jobs, from landscaping with Joe Martin '73 to serving ice cream at Ashburn's and at Swenson's on Oak Lawn with Eugene Johnson '73, Billy Hassell '74, and David Martin '74.
In the fall of 1973, Verhalen and good friend Eugene Johnson headed off to Bowdoin College in Maine where he studied classics and tended bar at the inn where Harriett Beecher Stowe wrote Uncle Tom's Cabin.
"He began to hint at a priestly vocation in his long letters written in fancy, complicated German during his freshman year at Bowdoin," recalled Fr. Roch. "He would always write about serious matters in German before his decision to enter the monastery. But while at Bowdoin, he warned me not to take him too seriously since he even had a girl friend."
But it was serious. During the spring of his freshman year, Verhalen decided to take a leave of absence in the fall. After tending bar for a couple of months, he headed to Colorado with a Bowdoin classmate who had never been west of Maine. Their plan was to ski during the day and to tend bar at night. But Verhalen had something else on his mind.
When they found bartending jobs weren't so easy to come by, the pair decided to part ways in Crested Butte for a few days. His buddy headed to Steamboat Springs to check out the job market; Verhalen was going hiking. They agreed to meet up in Aspen in a couple of days.

"When I am alone hiking, it's like a retreat," Fr. Peter said. "It's frequently just praying, enjoying nature, and meditating." This hike in the first days of September 1974 would give the young Verhalen plenty of time to reflect on finding his way in life because within three hours of leaving balmy Crested Butte, he lost the trail.
Verhalen had set out in shorts with a little dehydrated food and a quart of water. He was counting on continued good weather, an easy-to-follow trail, and a 24-hour hike. But the weather deteriorated quickly. The season's first snow moved in and obscured the trail. This 24-hour hike would take Verhalen over four days before it finally landed him in Aspen and in the priesthood.
"Hiking is such an important element in his life," said Matthew Nevitt '97, a class for which Fr. Peter served as Form Master. "It makes him the guy he is. He always used hiking as a metaphor when he taught us. Every summer, he would take a hiking trip and return with captivating tales.
"He would tell us stories about being above the tree-line with lightning all around him. It fascinated all of us. So when he offered to take us on a hike after seventh grade, nearly the whole class signed up. Since he could take only about twenty, we drew numbers to see who would go. (The remaining students were taken the following summer.)
"It was an incredible trip. Fr. Peter told us what to take in our backpacks and divvied up the food. We drove out to Wheeler Peak, the highest peak in New Mexico. We hiked up near the snow and caught lots of trout. After we climbed to the summit, we all slid down the steep snow bank, like we were skiing on our feet. I expected him to tell us that it was too dangerous, but he didn't mind. We came sliding down, instead of taking the path. We'll never forget it."
Back in September 1974, the young Verhalen found little time for merriment, but lots of time for reflection.
"The first night I couldn't find a creek so I was afraid to drink my quart of water or eat my dehydrated food," recalled Fr. Peter. "It was cold. Coyotes surrounded me. I held on to my Swiss Army knife; I was scared, hungry, and lost."
During the course of the hike, Fr. Peter heard the call. "That little voice said, 'You need to stop all this searching and join the monastery and teach kids.'
"A day later I met up with two guys and a girl who also were lost and hungry," Fr. Peter said. "One of the guys was completely unprepared for the weather and was so scared and starved that he had lost all composure. He was weeping uncontrollably; he was certain he was going to die on the mountain."
Fortunately, Verhalen and the girl kept their cool, studied their maps, and helped the group find the trail and their way down. The life-threatening situation bonded the four. When they arrived in Aspen, they met up with Verhalen's buddy and had a great party to celebrate the hikers' survival. His buddy still hadn't found a job. Verhalen had.

"In the fall of '74, Peter showed up in Dallas, and told me that he wanted to be a priest," remembered Fr. Roch. Busy and unable to talk at that moment, Fr. Roch asked Verhalen to come back. "A few weeks later I was supervising a study hall in the freshman classroom when, unexpectedly, Peter walked into the almost empty room and announced, as if in a daze, 'I want to enter the monastery.' Then it was my turn to fall into a daze. What should I say? I recommended that he wait until the next fall." Fr. Roch's hesitation was understandable.
Both the Cistercian Abbey and Cistercian Prep stood at a crossroads. Abbot Anselm was trying to determine whether the abbey should focus its efforts on the prep school, the University of Dallas or a combination of the two. Fr. Denis believed that the prep school, in the long run, would prove to be a more stable source of employment than the university. The monastery was split over the issue, and the Abbot sensed he had lost support. When he asked his brothers for a vote of confidence, the vote did not favor the Abbot. This turmoil had major repercussions on the prep school.
Fr. Denis, who had served as Headmaster since 1969, was asking to be included in abbey decisions that affected the school. The Abbot, perhaps feeling that such a move would indicate he was favoring the prep school side, did not act on the request. So, with the Abbot's permission, Fr. Denis resigned from the school, packed his bags, and flew off to study in Rome for a year.
"There also were factors that complicated the situation, like choosing between the different ideas on how to continue at the prep school, the style, the personnel," Abbot Denis remembered. Fr. Henry was left to run the school, rather reluctantly.
By the fall of 1975, when Verhalen officially joined the monastery, the monks had reinstated Abbot Anselm and Fr. Denis had resumed his position at the helm of the school. But the school was not out of the woods.
"As an alumnus of the prep school," Fr. Denis said, "Peter had an awareness of the importance of the school." Br. Gregory, who joined the monastery at the same time as Br. Peter, also followed the path toward teaching at the school. Although novices have no political power in the monastery, their decisions to teach at the prep school helped swing the balance toward the prep school.
"It was providential," said Fr. Denis, "that these two novices were open and interested in the school and had no other goals than to make themselves available to the school. Peter could have said, 'I really feel I need a doctorate, and I will be a Greek professor at UD.' But that didn't happen."
The arrival of Br. Peter and Br. Gregory also proved to be a turning point for the school in another way. While the school's math curriculum excelled from the start, the English curriculum lagged far behind. Some supporters of the school felt that the English program, not the math program, was the key to success in secondary education. How, they asked, could Hungarians succeed at teaching English to American students?
The school had attracted two fine English teachers by the mid seventies - Stephen Housewright and Ronnie Shepherd - but the need was still great.
So while Fr. Peter and Fr. Gregory may have had other ideas, Fr. Denis strongly suggested that they complete their masters' degrees in English (Fr. Peter would later obtain his masters in classics as well). By the time Fr. Gregory and Fr. Peter joined Tom Pruit in 1981, the school was well on its way towards forming an excellent, and stable, English department.

"It's like searching for gems," said one School Board member in describing Fr. Peter's efforts to stock the Cistercian faculty with great teachers. "I strive to find smart, smart people who also can serve as role models for the boys," said Fr. Peter. "I want them to be able to model how you live an intellectual life and a spiritual life.
"I want teachers who can light up the room. If they have been athletes or musicians, the boys can look up to them and trust them. That's the kind of person we always are looking for, even though we might not have a specific need at this time."
"He has showed the door to a few teachers," Abbot Denis emphasized, "and recruited those he wanted. He has greatly contributed to the quality of the faculty. He has a genuine enthusiasm for this aspect of his job. And he does not take chances; he researches each candidate very carefully. He wants dynamic teachers who plan to stay here. That will show in the long run."
Clearly, Fr. Ludwig, Stephen Housewright, and Fr. Placid made a lasting impression on Fr. Peter.
"Fr. Peter is passionate about improving every aspect of the school," said Greg Novinski '82, dean of students and Form II Form Master (not to mention father of six). "He seeks the advice and opinions of the veteran teachers and is open to our improving any part of the program. Fr. Peter really wants to fill out the school academically, athletically, artistically, in every way possible."
It isn't an easy task. In addition to his normal duties as Headmaster, Form VII Form Master, and Form IV Latin teacher, he constantly oversees a number of "extracurricular" activities (e.g., the renovation of the Upper School last summer, the re-accreditation process in the fall, and the capital campaign that was kicked off recently).
"Perhaps the most amazing feature of his leadership as Headmaster - and for me also the most frightening - is the ever-growing demands he places on himself," Fr. Roch insisted. "He always wants to improve himself, and as a consequence, the School. The results are beautifully obvious and heartening, but how long will he have the energy?"
"He leads by his example. He works extremely hard," Novinski added. "He's too busy nowadays to kick back, have a beer, and talk shop like we have in the past."
Instead, Fr. Peter relies on regular Monday morning meetings to include the opinions of his administrative team. "I would like to reduce the load on our administrators without adding to the bureaucracy," he said. He also is looking for ways to capitalize on the expansion and improvement of the drama and music facilities that will be made this summer (see page 4).
"Somehow I would like to see us come up with a more coherent, comprehensive arts program," Fr. Peter said. "Perhaps the new drama space and music room will allow us to re-think the entire schedule. It's an exciting prospect."

"We want Christopher to come back to school tomorrow," insisted Fr. Peter, sitting in the living room of Christopher's parents, Kelly and Jim Bloodgood '74 this past September. Christopher Bloodgood '05 had sustained a head injury playing JV football six nights before. Within 24 hours, virtually all of his short-term memory was lost. The doctors admitted that the memory loss baffled them.
Fr. Peter accompanied Fr. Paul, Christopher's form master, to the Bloodgood's home. Christopher had answered the door. He didn't recognize the monks.
"I don't think you understand what we're dealing with," responded Mrs. Bloodgood, "Christopher doesn't remember anything. He doesn't know where he goes to school. He won't recognize his classmates or his teachers."
"We will take care of him. We want Christopher to come back to school," Fr. Peter persisted.
"Christopher won't know where his classroom is," Mrs. Bloodgood said. "He won't know where the bathroom is. He's certainly not going to remember anything he hears in class."
"Mom," Fr. Peter said compassionately, "we will take care of him and we want him to come back to school."
"I thought he was crazy," recalled Mrs. Bloodgood recently. "I couldn't imagine sending this child to school. School was the least of my worries."
But the faculty and his classmates were prepared. Classmates took him from one class to another and showed him the bathroom. He was never left alone.
"They felt that there would be more stimulation at school and that it would spark his memory," she said. "They also felt that Christopher was an important part of the community. They didn't want students and faculty to assume the worst because he was out for a while."
"Christopher is going to be fine," Fr. Peter told Mrs. Bloodgood countless times. Sometimes if Christopher did not feel up to sitting in class, he would sit and talk with Fr. Peter in the Headmaster's Office.
After three weeks, Christopher's memory improved significantly. But a new obstacle arose. Christopher began to experience petit mal seizures. He would become dazed for a few seconds to a few minutes.
Then nearly two months after the head injury, Christopher suffered a major seizure, a grand mal seizure, during theology class. Fr. Roch alerted Mrs. Tinker who immediately called the ambulance and Fr. Peter. Christopher would lie unconscious for nearly 10 minutes. Fr. Peter stayed at his side while Fr. Paul took the rest of the class outside.
Fr. Peter accompanied Christopher to the hospital and stayed in phone contact with the Bloodgoods.
"When Jim and I walked into the emergency room," Mrs. Bloodgood said, "Chris-topher was talking to Fr. Peter as if they were best friends. He was a little pale, but he was fine. Fr. Peter took care of it all."
In February, Christo-pher made it through his first full week of school since September. "It's huge for us," said Mrs. Bloodgood. Christopher has missed 27 days of school so far this year. At Cistercian, missing three to five days can throw a student behind.
"Fr. Peter has kept up with his health constantly," she added. "He told us not to worry about the grades. He told me recently, 'I want you to know that Christopher will graduate from Cistercian.'"
"He had complete faith that Christopher was going to be fine. Fr. Peter stood by Christopher every step of the way. It's comforting to know that if a truly serious issue arises, Fr. Peter will be there for you and your kids," she said.

"Fr. Peter is the type of guy who is a '10' when it comes to self-control," Ryan Shrime said from his apartment in New York City where he is acting in an off-Broadway show. "The funny thing is when he kicks back on a hike, his self-control goes from a '10' to a '9.' He may be dressed in his civvies on a hike but he always has the Fr. Peter air, kind of like the oldest brother. He has this definite sense of what is right and what is wrong."
"People sometimes have the impression that he's aloof," said Matthew Nevitt, "but he's not. I think he is just pensive, constantly analyzing the situation and the possible outcomes before he acts. He's a very reflective guy.
"I am in medical school now and I believe that psychiatrists know their stuff. But when I need some advice on an important life issue, Fr. Peter will be the first person I turn to. He's been a loyal friend, someone you can always rely on in any kind of situation."
"I remember our playing tag out on the old middle school soccer fields beside what's now the science complex," said Tom Molanphy '89, who now teaches writing at the University of San Francisco. "I can still see Fr. Peter dashing over the cleat-marked field, scrambling to snatch 11-year-olds giggling in the tall grass. One particular day in the winter when the field was slick with mud, Fr. Peter slipped. I can still see him standing back up, his pristine white habit vilified with a deep green stain. Those of us in sight stood frozen, while those in the tall grasses slunk deeper to hide from what we assumed would be a rage.
"But Fr. Peter poked the nearest student, smirked 'Gotcha!' and galloped off. For the next eight years, Fr. Peter played tag with us, and he inevitably won. Whether he tapped us with the ethical implications of our actions, touched us with the importance of hard work and play, or grabbed us with his legendary smile and chuckle, Fr. Peter taught us in the best manner: he told us of an honorable way to live, and he supported his brave theory by living that way every day that we were around him."
"When I go back to the school now, Fr. Peter can't keep the smile off his face," Nevitt said. "He's so excited; sometimes he's at a loss for words. He may not always know what to say but you can tell he relishes every minute of our time together."
"Looking back, I couldn't think of a better time for my dad to pass away," Shrime reflected. "Had it happened earlier, I would have been too young and unprepared. Had it happened afterwards, we wouldn't have had the support of the priests. They gave us so much strength.
"The monks see a lot, a lot more than lay people," Shrime said. "It always amazes me how many classes they can rear as their own children. I remember going to Fr. Peter's office and talking to him after he became Headmaster. Fr. Peter had this gleam in his eyes when he saw me - it was as if he was looking at one of his own children."

Sidebar

On Dee Walker's passing

"He remained emotionally strong so he could lead us"

"Dee, what do I do now?" Fr. Peter occasionally asks in his prayers. Dee Walker '97 passed away in a car accident in the summer between his junior and senior year, about a month after Dr. Shrime's battle with cancer ended in May 1996. Fr. Peter was still moving into his new digs in the Headmaster's Office.
As Dee's Form Master, Fr. Peter remained a pillar not just for the class, but also for his grieving parents. Dee was their only child.
"Dee's death galvanized the community," Fr. Peter remembered. "He was a blessed kid and he continued to bless his class and the entire community. I still remember him in prayers daily."
"Emotionally, it was very trying when Dee Walker died," Abbot Denis recalled. "Peter is not the most gregarious fellow but the support that he offered to the boys and to Dee's parents was well beyond the call of duty. It is very typical of Peter not explain the heart-rending part of the story. His role was enormously difficult, and he worked very hard to help the boys and the parents cope."
"Fr. Peter had so many roles - teacher, mentor, form master, emotional leader, and Headmaster," remembered Dee's classmate Matthew Nevitt. "As hurt as he was, he remained emotionally strong for us so that he could lead us. He was stoic. Most of us had not experienced a death so close to us. He called us together before the funeral to talk about Dee so we could express our emotions. He orchestrated us through the grieving process."
"The laid-back smile and self-deprecating demeanor hide a spine of steel," said Fr. Roch, "and a child-like faith in the God who has carried him so far."